Mirrors have existed for thousands of years but the looking glass has just been given a 21st century makeover.

A new digital mirror gives people X-ray vision to let them see their insides – complete with bones, organs and muscle on show.

The 3D art installation, called the ‘Primary Intimacy of Being,’ recreates what a body looks like inside and eerily tracks a person’s movements as if they are seeing themselves.

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A new view: A 3D art installation, called the ‘Primary Intimacy of Being,’ recreates what a body looks like inside and moves along with viewers

HOW THE MIRROR WORKS

The mirror works by using PET scans, MRI scans and X-rays of people to capture details of their anatomy in high resolution, which takes around three-and-a-half hours.

This information is processed so that if the person stands in front of the 'mirror', they can see their insides because the scans and X-rays are projected on the screen in realtime.

Even people who have not been scanned can see a similar person's anatomy.

A Microsoft Kinect captures the participants’ movements. A gender-determining algorithm chooses whether to project a masculine or feminine form on the screen.

The mirror shows a 3D image of the human body on a 65-inch screen.

When a person comes sufficiently close to the projection, they see the interior of ‘their’ body as if through a magnetic resonance image. The X-ray and nuclear imaging reveal the texture of the bones and muscles, cerebral activity, the functioning of organs.

The scientists said: ‘Fascinated, the participant discovers her internal organs with, which she has always lived without ever seeing them. A new intimacy is established with the stranger that is our own body.’

The mirror will go on show at the Computer-Human Interaction conference in Toronto, Canada, and viewers who experienced the technology in Paris reacted self-consciously to seeing their anatomy in a new way.

One woman tried to shield herself from being laid bare on the giant black screen, which the mirror’s creators say it helps people explore how they relate to their bodies.

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The mirror works by using PET scans, MRI scans and X-rays of people to capture details of their anatomy in high resolution, which takes around three-and-a-half hours.

This information is processed so that if the person stands in front of the 'mirror', they can see their insides because the scans and X-rays are projected on the screen in realtime.

Even people who have not been scanned can see a similar person's anatomy.

The mirror also knows if they are male or female thanks to a gender recognition algorithm to make a close match.

The 65inch (165cm) screen uses Microsoft Kinect’s motion-capture camera to track the movements of a person standing in front of the screen, focusing on the movement of 24 joints.

Laid bare: A digital mirror, which is a 3D art installation recreates what your body might look like inside and eerily tracks a person's movements as if they are seeing though themselves

Experience recorded: Xavier Maître, a medical imaging
researcher at the University of Paris-South, who came up with the
concept, observed the reactions of 30 people who were left alone with
the revealing mirror for three minutes each and then completed a
questionnaire about their experience (pictured)

The X-ray and nuclear imaging reveal the texture of the bones and muscles, cerebral activity and the functioning of organs.

‘If the visitor stands in front of this mirror, gets closer or farther, she or he enters or exits her or his MRI, X-ray, or nuclear body that is reflecting her or him. She or he discovers by own means an intimacy that was hidden so far to her or him,’ the scientists said.

Xavier Maître, a medical imaging researcher at the University of Paris-South, who came up with the concept, observed the reactions of 30 people who were left alone with the revealing mirror for three minutes each and then completed a questionnaire about their experience.

They were shown images of other people of the same sex – to save time and so that the experiment had more impact – and the team of researchers found one third of people naturally tried to cover ‘their’ exposed bodies and felt uncomfortable.

Peculiar and profound: The installation is designed to create 'a profound image; a peculiar and unexpected avatar of our identity.' Around a third of people looking at 'themselves' in a new way reported feeling self conscious

Insides revealed: The mirror shows the results of a PET scan, X-ray and MRI scan and Kinect technology animates them to match a viewer's movements

Mr Maître explained that peoples’ reactions to the mirror were similar to a child’s unsure if their reflection is actually an image of themselves.

‘It's as if you're inside your body. You're discovering something that belongs to you,’ he told New Scientist.

In the study, the researchers explained that the more a person embodies an avatar, the more the avatar influences their self-perception.

They said the self-conscious reaction is as old as the Greek mythological character Narcissus and that ‘standing in front of a reflecting medium is a fundamental self-perception-building experience’.

Self-conscious? One woman tried to shield herself from being laid bare on the giant black screen, which the mirror's creators say helps people explore how they relate to their bodies

Mr Maître explained that peoples’
reactions to the mirror were similar to a child’s unsure if their
reflection is actually an image of themselves. Here 'naked' bodies appear to dance

Rediscovery: 'If the visitor stands in front of this mirror, gets closer or farther, she or he enters or exits her or his MRI, X-ray, or nuclear body that is reflecting her or him. She or he discovers by own means an intimacy that was hidden so far to her or him,' the scientists said

They also noted that inner images of living bodies often make people uncomfortable if they are suggesting ‘extreme nudity’.

‘This association of body interior and personal privacy is characteristic of the Western culture, for which the inner self lies deep in the body,’ they said.

Mr Maitre hopes to make the experience more realistic by making the heart on the screen beat and the lungs move.

While then mirror is currently an art project, he hopes the technology could be used by doctors in the future to help people prepare for operations.

The digital mirror is not the only project using augmented reality for use in a medical environment.

A different mirror called ‘Miracle’ projects medical imagery directly onto a person's body, while another technology can animate MRI data on a standard computer screen and show body parts that might prove troublesome in the future.

Naked? The person standing in front of the mirror sees an animated version of themselves without any skin in realtime